The amazing but true history of David Harmer

David Harmer, like all grown ups, is incredibly old. He vividly remembers living next door to Queen Victoria and taking the dinosaurs for a walk in the park. She was a short woman and had a lot of trouble with the T.Rex , preferring the Titchysaurus and the Poorlypawasaurus.

When David was born, he was a podgy, chunky baby. Now he is a podgy, chunky grown up. In between those times he was a bit thinner. When he was a little boy, he was abducted by aliens from the planet YERKAZOOPLOD who stole away all the bits of his brains to do with sums, football and common sense. These bits never really grew back, even though David tried very hard with the football. Luckily, the aliens told him that reading, writing, poetry, drama and eating fruit cake were all great things.

They said ‘One day we will return and give you back some of the bits we have stolen. Until then, farewell, chunky earthling boy!’

Actually, what they said was:‘Gloobersplod Hurkylurky harkky. Howizglig nebbleblurp. Seeya oddle sploddle dundernugget’ (which puzzled him a lot and made him gormless).

David was born in the Deep South of England near a place called Tunbridge Wells, but he didn’t stay long as it was very wet and he had to keep jumping in a bucket to see daylight. His family moved to a place called Charlton where everyone is very Athletic. That didn’t suit podgy David much, so the family (Mum, Dad and brother Peter) moved to Beckenham near Penge. This was where David met the dreaded Mr. Moore who came creaking down the door to shout at him. A lot.

Mr. Moore tried to teach David neat handwriting by yelling a lot. They both found the sneaky aliens had stolen that bit of David’s brain as well.

Eventually David’s dad decided to depart directly to Doncaster mainly through a love of alliteration and because he had a better job up in South Yorkshire. David found himself on a strange and lonely planet called Mexborough Grammar School where everyone said ‘Ayup, nathen sithee does tha like chaze for thee snap?’

‘Wot chew on abart?’ David would reply.

After several years of David understanding nobody and nobody understanding David, he eventually learned how to speak properly and found that Yorkshire was the best place to be in all the universe. It still is.

One of the best things in Yorkshire is the mighty Sheffield United. David has a season ticket and loves The Blades!

Eventually David became a teacher and then vanished into the deep, dismal, dank dark forests of Doncaster to go to Headteacher training camp. All the time he was writing and performing poems and publishing books. One day he woke up feeling far too grumpy and cross and thought ‘It’s time to escape!’ So he did. Nowadays he visits schools and other places working with all kinds of people and laughing a lot. As long as he keeps taking his tablets he is fine. They are very big and have things written on them like ‘Smile’ and ‘Be nice to children’.

Nowadays David lives with his family and some pets. He is married to Paula and they have two wonderful daughters called Lizzie and Harriet. There are two dogs, one with loads of wrinkles and one with long ginger hair, as well as four cats of various ages, ranging from 2 to 17.

David with wife Paula, at a special family wedding

He is still waiting for the aliens to come back with the missing bits of his brain…